Do we like them?

Do we like Patrick Bateman?

A character from American Psycho (2000)

Our score: 1 out of 10. No. The charm, the business cards and the skincare routine are all a mask. Watch him as a dark joke about vanity, but don't back him.

Patrick Bateman is a young, wealthy and handsome investment banker in Manhattan during the late-1980s Wall Street boom. His whole life is about appearances: the right suit, the right restaurant, the best business card. As IMDb's summary of the film puts it, he hides an alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends. The story follows him as that hidden side grows harder to contain.

Bateman is a satire of greed and status-chasing. The people around him barely notice who he is, and they keep mistaking him and his colleagues for one another. The joke is that nobody looks past the surface, and that suits him fine. He is funny to watch, and the story is built to make you uneasy about laughing.

We score him low because he is the villain at the centre of his own story. He has no real friendships, no sense of right and wrong, and no remorse. His one 'virtue' is a very good manner. Envy of a more successful colleague pushes him into murder early on, and a private investigator's questions only make him more unsettled.

The film leaves it deliberately unclear how much of what we see really happens and how much is in his head. Either way, nothing redeems him, and the one thing he wants, to be noticed for who he is, never comes.